The Restricted Section
by Thunder Stag
Summary: Anybody can check out the first seven books. But we've all wondered - what's in the restricted section?
1. The Value of a Laugh

**Greetings, all, from Thunder Stag! This is (hopefully) going to be a series of one-shots from Harry Potter, some cracky and some not. I'm not sticking to any specific characters or times, although I will mostly be doing Golden Trio stuff. Leave a comment if you want to tell me something! I don't own Harry Potter. He is JK Rowling's and JK Rowling's alone.**

Harry bent over the table, a bead of sweat running down his forehead. It was all up to him. He, Harry Potter, the Chosen One, the Boy who Lived, was the only person left who could act in enough time to save not only himself, but the others surrounding him. He carefully twitched his wand, moving the next stone over barely a millimeter. When nothing happened, he leaned back in his chair, sighing in relief. Unfortunately, his sudden slump was enough to shake the table and jiggle the stone.

Without warning, the entire table's worth of Gobstones practically exploded, spraying greenish slime over Harry, and with him, Ron and Hermione. Harry stayed where he was, trying to get his heart rate back under control, while Ron roared with laughter. Hermione wasn't far behind.

"The - the look on your _face_, mate!" Ron managed to gasp between bouts of laughter. Hermione wasn't any better.

"And his glasses! You look like a mad scientist!" Hermione cried. Harry managed to move at last, and hastily scrubbed off his glasses on his robes.

"Well, what if I _am_ a mad scientist?" Harry challenged.  
>Before Ron could ask, Hermione told him, "like a muggle Snape." Ron went back to laughing.<p>

"Maybe that wasn't Gobstone juice!" Harry said, waving his arms around. "Maybe it was poison only I'm immune to!"

Ron managed to stop laughing. "Mate, I'd only start being worried if you were actually good at potions." Hermione stifled a snort.

"You're one to talk," Harry pointed out. Ron snorted.

"Yeah, but I'm not trying to kill my best mate," he pointed out. Sudden inspiration dawned on his face. "Or _am_ I?" He added, and a badly attempt at a fiendish grin spread on his face. This time, Hermione didn't even try to stifle a snort.

"Both of you are ridiculous," She told them. She waved her wand, and the slime disappeared from her hair and clothes. Then she took the picked up her bag and started to walk towards the stairs to the girl's dorm.

Harry and Ron began trying to remove the goo as well. Harry tried to get some of the stuff out of Ron's hair only to have it turn periwinkle. Ron reciprocated by poking Harry on the nose with his wand and somehow managing to make said appendage turn into a surprisingly accurate copy of Dumbledore's long, crooked one.

"By the way," Hermione called from the door of the girl's dorm. "I'd watch what the two of you drink for the next few days." With that, she turned and went up to bed. Harry and Ron stared at each other for a moment, and then broke down into brand-new laughter.


	2. Advice

**I don't own Harry Potter. Author's note at bottom.**

There had been seven Weasleys at Hogwarts in the most recent generation, and not one of them had had the same first day. Bill had been the Weasley to have a normal experience — he was sorted into Gryffindor without a moment's hesitation, and made friends there right away. Charlie had done the same, but ended up getting lost on the way up to the Gryffindor common room, and ended up befriending a purple-haired girl named Tonks, who was just as lost. A prefect found them the next morning, sound asleep and Tonk's hair as flaming Weasley red as Charlie's.

Percy's first day was chaotic. Though Mr. Weasley had been able to stay home with Ron and little Ginny, nobody realized that the twins had snuck along in the trunk of the Ford Angelina until they were actually at the station, and even then they almost managed to make it onto the Hogwarts Express before their mother caught them. With the stigma of his two brothers, both whooping loudly with delight as they were chased across the station by an irate Mrs. Weasley, Percy ended up in a compartment by himself and spent the whole way to Hogwarts alone. Even at Hogwarts, he didn't have many friends until the next year, when the story had lost some of its attraction.

Fred and George, of course, had caused trouble the moment they got on the train and away from their mother's prying eyes — they openly mocked a pair of Slytherin prefects and only just managed to find refuge in a compartment where a lonely fellow first year — Lee Jordan, as it turned out — met and hid them under the seats. That wasn't the end of it, either; Once at Hogwarts, they nearly succeeded in starting a food fight during the welcome feast, and _did_ manage to get separated and lost on the way to Gryffindor tower. Neither had a boring night.

While Fred was led on a merry chase by Peeves (they respected and distrusted the poltergeist in equal measure after that occasion, and managed to earn his respect in turn over their Hogwarts career), George got turned around and found himself in a tunnel behind a mirror on the ground floor, where Fred found him an hour later and Charlie, who was head boy by then, a few minutes after that. They went on to find immense popularity and infamy as they pranked the school without mercy.

Ron's big adventure, of course, was that he met and befriended Harry Potter (and wasn't Ginny absolutely ecstatic when she found out about it), and managed to make an enemy of Draco Malfoy before he even got to Hogwarts. In later years, when they met at the Hogwarts Class of 1997/1998 reunion, they stumbled onto their continuing argument over the value of blood and found that despite not actively attacking each other most of the time they still distinctly disliked each other (though later, when both had spiked the drink of the other with fairly spectacular amounts of alcohol, they did come to blows).

Ginny had had, at least for a Weasley, a pretty tame entrance. She was exhausted when they got there (later realizing that she felt fine before she remembered her diary), and despite having had a kind of conversation with a young blonde girl in her year whose name she didn't get until later, it was mostly Ginny being confused and the other girl being confusing. Even when she asked Tom afterwards, he was equally confused by the girl's bizarre logic. He told her not to hang around the girl anymore.

But now, Ginny was miserable. The Slytherins, especially one girl in her year named Chastity Fumier-Cheveux, were _awful_. They insulted her robes (second hand, but clean, and at least they weren't falling apart!), her father (Ginny _liked_ the mad junk in his shed, even if her mother was suspicious of most of it), and told her that she wasn't any better than a blood traitor. That was when she ran away. She found herself on the Hogwarts grounds, probably closer to the Forbidden forest than was strictly safe.

"'Ello, there!" boomed a loud, frightening voice. Ginny jumped up and whirled around, but went too fast and fell. "Woah, now, don' ge' all jumpy, now," said the owner of the voice. Ginny recognized him immediately — this was Hagrid, the Gamekeeper. Ron was friends with him.

"I — I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be by the forest, but I —" she stuttered, but Hagrid just chuckled and waved her apology aside.

"Ah, 's not a bother." He said in his booming voice. "I've spen' half my life chasin' yer brothers away from tha' there forest. Mind you, 's nice havin' one who isn' tryin' to ge' in."

"I — um — thank you, Mr. Hagrid, sir," she managed. The gamekeeper grinned at her, the first genuinely kind smile she had seen at Hogwarts so far.

"Yer brother Ron tol' me all 'bout you, lass," he told her. "Come on, now, would ye fancy a cuppa?"

Ginny nodded furiously, and hurried after the giant as he strode away. His legs were so long she had to jog to keep up. "Um, Mr. Hagrid? How did you know Ron is my brother?" She asked. The kind smile grew wider.

"Didn't have to, did I? Anybody who knows yer family like I do can spot a Weasley a mile off. 'Course, fer a few like that coward Malfoy, tha's no' a good thing." His voice had gotten a little tight when he mentioned Malfoy, but Ginny hardly noticed. She remained silent until they reached Hagrid's hut, but when the kettle had been hung over the fire, she spoke again.

"Mr. Hagrid?"

He glanced over from where he was (for some reason) pulling rocks out of the pantry. "Jus' Hagrid, lass. Tha's what ever'body calls me."

Ginny almost managed to smile for real now. "Do you know why the Slytherin girls hate me so much? Every time I see them, they just tell my my robes are ugly, or my dad is stupid, or my whole family is stupid." She didn't know why she was asking Hagrid. He was so friendly — not like Tom, this was different — but should she trust him? Was that really wise? His next words answered her.

"I dunno why fer sure, lass." Hagrid said. The teapot was whistling, and he started to pour. "Bu' whenever a Slytherin and a Gryffindor meet, sparks fly. They jus' don' know when to stop — but mind you, a lo' of Gryffindors don', either. If I were you, lass, I'd ignore 'em an' get on with my life." He took a long drink of his still-hot tea, which didn't seem to bother him. His kind eyes sparked at her.

"But you're not me, Hagrid!" Ginny exclaimed. She felt uncharacteristically angry. "How would you know? You can 't know!"

Hagrid's eyes didn't stop sparkling, but they did change. The look there told her to stop speaking, right there. "No, I'm no' you, lass. But do ye think I got this big after school? Kids are some o' the meanest beasts yer likely to meet anywhere, when they've got somethin' to mock. Jus' hold up yer chin an' remember — they're no' right."

He let her think on that for a moment, and when she looked up, he was handing her a plate of rocks. No, wait — these were little cakes. How bad could they be?

She made the mistake of trying one, but gave it up as a bad job when her teeth barely dented it.

After that, they spent a relatively pleasant while just talking, and then Ginny went back to the castle. Nobody was going to boss Ginny Molly Weasley around anymore — and heaven help anyone who tried.

** I am **_**really**_** sorry this took so long to get out. I wanted this to be a weekly thing, something to post every Thursday, but my Beta was too busy to get back to me about the story, so it ended up being another week before it was even ready for print. And I had a thing on Thursday, and my weekend was busy, and it all kind of snowballed. So here you go, well over a week late!**

**Like it? Hate it? Tell me how you feel, and maybe give me suggestions for what to do next, because I could **_**not**_** think of what to write for this one. Thanks!**

** -Thunder Stag**


	3. The Map, Pt One

**Hey, all. Thunder Stag here.**

**Sorry for leaving this fic unattended for so long. I had a play, and work, and plain old laziness, and, well, basically real life interfered. So I'm sorry for that.**

**But, in return for the patience you've shown, I'm posting what is, at the moment, the longest thing I've ever submitted to Fanfiction. I hope you enjoy; if you do, leave a comment telling me why. If you don't, see my previous sentence. Enjoy!**

Fred and George Weasley were covered head to foot in Muggle shaving cream. They stood in Argus Filch's office, a strange combination of terrified and elated with their most recent adventure. Nobody could prove it was them, of course — the twins had barely been at Hogwarts for a fortnight, and even at home they had never before pulled something as bold as this.

It all started with the two of them looking to get revenge on a Slytherin who had, in typical snake-like behavior, rather back-handedly insulted their family. They weren't entirely sure what he had even said, to be honest — but his smug look and the jeers of the other Slytherins was enough for them. They didn't waste a lot of time with the plan: the next person to leave the dungeons by the main exit would be doused in shaving cream and sparkles. It never occurred to them that their enemy _might_ not be the next person to go upstairs. It was their rotten luck that the one who _did_ in fact leave next was none other than Severus Snape.

Now, Fred and George were wholly inexperienced in the art of pranking, at least against someone they weren't related to. They made several key mistakes: first, of course, that their target would not be the one they hit. Second, that they should be somewhere else, doing something else, in the presence of people who could back up their story should it become necessary when the prank happened. And thirdly, that they should avoid being in the blast range of the shaving cream and sparkles when they erupted.

So it was fairly obvious that they were the culprits behind Snape's newly pleasant smell and sparkly hair. He had taken them without delay and hardly a word to his office, where he used sticking charms to anchor them to the floor by the bottoms of their shoes and called Filch through the Floo. They did try to take off their shoes to get out, but the spell apparently prevented that, too. Or Snape had a spell on his office that prevented people from removing shoes.

The caretaker was only too happy to grab them both by the arm — his grip was painfully tight and cold even through their robes — and drag them to his office, where he locked the door and (from the sound of it) ran off, cackling gleefully. He was probably going to go find his thumb screws and hot irons. Unfortunately, he had underestimated the capacity of the Weasley twins for getting into trouble, which they immediately did. Filch hadn't stuck them to the floor after all; the only thing he had done was to set his weird cat to watching them.

So Fred began their assault on Filch's office by opening the drawers in his desk. Random crap he had taken from kids over the year, a comb, two sandwiches (one looked to be some kind of experiment, as there was some pretty nasty mold growing on it) and a pamphlet for some kind of mail order magic class. Boring.

So they began to go through the office's file cabinets. Their mother would not have approved: two walls were covered in cabinets, and most of the drawers were unlabeled except for the occasional year. Only one was really interesting, actually - a drawer labeled simply 'Marauders'.

It was absolutely overflowing with reports, files labeled with names (mostly S.B. and J.P., but a fair number with R.L. and P.P.) and old prank items both muggle and magical that looked to be at least a decade old. There was a little paper canister with a string, which (when George pulled on it, as any eleven year old would) exploded with a bang and showered them with confetti. Sadly, there were no others of that kind in the cabinet.

Naturally, the twins raided the drawer. Old files they thought might be interesting, trinkets that might still work (and some that certainly wouldn't but looked cool), a few pieces of unidentifiable parchment. There was an old hat that might have once belonged to Sprout, so covered it was by patches and tears, and a bag of what looked like pineapple, hardened and covered in sugar.

And just as naturally as their decision to 'liberate' the items, Filch re-entered the room right then and flipped out, grabbing them by the arms and taking back his precious loot. By the time he was done, all that was left were a few pieces of parchment Fred had managed to sneak into an inside pocket of his robes. Filch told them to return that evening for detention, and sent them back to their classes.

It wasn't until almost midnight when they got back to the common room. A few upperclassmen, deeply engrossed in their studies, briefly looked up and proceeded to ignore the red-headed first years. The two of them, finally alone, pulled out what loot they had managed to keep from Filch's office. All in all, it consisted of two pages of a case report for someone referred to only as SB, a rubber ball that changed colors every time it hit the ground, and an old, blank piece of parchment. Of course, neither Fred nor George thought that it was just that. They had found a _blank piece of parchment_ in Argus Filch's filing system. The parchment was at least a few years old, and young though the twins were, neither thought that a man as obsessed with cleanliness as Filch would leave a spare piece of parchment lying around.

So they set to work. Fred tried a lumos spell first — the twins had had a kind of ink that only showed up under the light of a lumos when they were younger, until it got lost in the jungle that was their room — but it didn't reveal anything. They tried holding a flame to the parchment, just close enough to make the Muggle invisible ink stuff their father had showed them once in his workshop show up, but it just burned the corner a little. None of their other attempts were any more fruitful.

A few days later, both of them were pretty much out of ideas. The parchment was stubbornly refusing to reveal what it hid, from secret messages to embarrassing photos, and George was sullenly tapping it with his wand. Fred, who was trying to master the _Wingardium Leviosa_ spell Flitwick was having them practice for homework, missed his feather and hit a bottle of ink. To his surprise, it lifted up about six inches — just enough that when he dropped it, startled, a drop spilled. The drop landed on the paper.

And the paper came to life.


End file.
